There are many ways and software tools to recover data lost due to a disk malfunction or failure, but there is only one way not to get that far – monitor your hard disks to detect any potential damage well before it happens. Hard Disk Sentinel Pro is a tool designed for IT professionals and knowledgeable users alike who want to keep an eye on their external and internal drives’ behavior and performance and thus foresee any potential malfunction ahead of time.
Hard Disk Sentinel Pro is useful on many levels. As an “information tool”, its tabbed main interface provides you with at-a-glance information on your disks’ performance, health, estimated remaining lifetime, temperature, specific product data, a list with all the S.M.A.R.T. values, numerical and graphical information about your disks’ activity and transfer rates, etc.
As a “warning tool”, the program offers IT managers a large combination of technical data and graphical information on your disks’ health and overall status for you to interpret and analyze. Users with a different background will benefit from the program’s exhaustive range of graphs and alert messages, which will let them know immediately if anything is not going as it should.
As a “disk testing tool”, Hard Disk Sentinel Pro counts with a long list of self-tests to check certain hardware components, such as the heads, the servo, the internal buffer, etc.; to verify the entire disk’s surface, bad-sector re-allocation included; to verify the disk noise, the temperature, and the seek time performance, and even to perform an intensive stress-test. Additionally, to all these tests, the program also offers solutions to fix certain hard disk problems, usually those related to potential surface damages.
Finally, as a “data loss prevention” tool, this high-end utility provides you with full backup functionality with various automatic backup options, including backing up data from remote computers in a network. Besides, it comes with a useful shutdown feature that will turn off your computer automatically in case of disk failure, disk overheat, or any hint of disk health degradation.
The list of features does not end here – this is but a summary of Hard Disk Sentinel Pro’s main functionality. The rest is for you to discover. Except for a few remote disk management functions, this Professional version of the program mirrors the superior Enterprise edition. Other less demanding users may want to opt for the Standard edition, which includes the program’s basic functionality. In any case, I cannot recommend highly enough to anyone interested in HDD monitoring to download and install the Trial edition and see the wealth of features and functions that the program offers for themselves.
v5.3 [Jul 21, 2018]
Improvements and new features:
- Improved installation when Controlled Folder Access function in Windows Defender is active.
- Display notification and ask for whitelisting when Controlled Folder Access function in Windows Defender is active which prevents access/testing of disks and detection of disk status information.
- Detect and display TRIM status for SATA, NVMe SSDs correctly again after April 2018 update of Windows 10.
- Displaying additional NVMe functions / optional features.
- Improved connection and on-line registration, activation.
- Improved report sending via Report menu -> Send test report to developer option.
- Improved / changed automatic update.
- Manual update asks for confirmation of the update when new version found.
Improved hardware support:
- Improved Intel RAID detection, LSI RAID detection.
- HP RAID: improved reporting of SmartSSD Wear Gauge Utilization. Added Remaining Days Until Wearout value to S.M.A.R.T. page.
- Added support of Community OFA NVMe driver for NVMe SSDs.
- Added support of Apacer APS25AF4120G SSD (SM130-25).
- Display health status correctly of new Kingston A400 series SSDs (may reported 0% on the beginning of lifetime).
- Improved NVMe M.2 SSD detection on Windows 7.
- Improved detection of external RAID boxes.
- Improved health of various Toshiba SSDs.
- Improved support of new Crucial SSDs.
- Improved power on time display for various IBM, Seagate, Hitachi SAS hard disk drives.
- Improved power on time display for various Toshiba SATA hard disk drives.
Bug fixes, further modifications:
- Fixed: write tests may show "Access denied" when the default "Lock volume" option enabled on external pendrive, memory card.
- Fixed: show error when there is no internet connection when update initiated.
- Improved showing single tray icon when "Display only highest temperature" option enabled.
- Improved multi-drive testing.
- Improved current temperature graph.
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